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Wednesday, 3 August 2016

Clean slates and taking a step back to look at the hobby.

Ok so I missed Spring by quite a way here, but I figured it was about time I looked back at things in general and tried to focus on what I really want to achieve in the hobby for the rest of the year. I think inevitably I've got sucked into a lot of detail recently what with organising Hero for a Day and all that has entailed, and at the moment I'm very much feeling like hobby things are spiraling out of my control, and I don't like that feeling at all!

Dark Eldar.

Not too long ago I took the decision to sell my Dark Eldar as they'd been sat on the shelf for a long time. Initially things looked to be going well with an offer of over $500 being made for them. I packed them all up, taking up a whole evening, only to receive an email fro the buyer the next day saying he'd not been able to gather the money together so couldn't go through with the purchase. Not to be put off, I posted the army up on ebay but failed to get any offers that were reasonable based on the total cost of the army and the standard it was painted to. I therefore decided to split things up and sell them off separately. I managed to get a couple of bundles sold together, and put some other items up individually on ebay, though two of those purchases are also now looking to be dodgy and I've got some work to do to rescue them. I still have a selection of stuff to put up for sale including my warriors, raiders, court of the archon etc.

This particular episode is really getting me down now - I was very proud of my Dark Eldar army and the decision to sell them wasn't taken lightly, so for them now to be dragging on and on feels like the fates are mocking me somewhat.

Imperial Knight(s)

I bought myself the renegade boxed set and love the knight kit. It's taking forever to paint though, and the size of some of the parts means it's more awkward to get to work to paint than most of my other models. It's making me question whether I really want to build and paint the second kit or sell it off. If anyone wants one - make me an offer, I may be persuaded to take you up on it!

Iron Fists

This is one of only two really viable armies I have available to me at present, and with a couple of landspeeders still to finish and lots of weapons to re-jig I'm rediscovering my age old problem of not being able to finish off the last 5-10% of a project. Added to that, I'm 99% certain that when the dusk knights really kick in I'm going to want to convince myself to repaint these guys to match, what's the point having two disparate marine armies after all?

Tau

Well this army is finished. Or is it? I painted them really quick to get them done for our tale of gamers, and I now look back at the paintjob and wish I'd spent more time on them. I've got a lovely idea for a colour scheme in my head using rhinox hide and turquoise, which I think could look really original but it'll be annoying to repaint an army I'd so recently finished!

Dusk Knights

These guys really are the shining light for me in the hobby at the moment, and I really want to crack on with them, but finishing drop pods is a real hurdle to cross first, and with all the Hero for a Day stuff to do I won't be able to get into them immediately, which is sort of what I want to do.

Hero for a Day

I'll be honest, I've been a bit disappointed really with ticket sales (both for spots at the event and so far on raffle tickets) here, I had got 13 players pre-registered to come along to the event a few months back, but gradually they have dropped out for various legitimate reasons, and I'm now having to really push to promote something that 3 months ago looked like filling the player roster by itself. I keep having to remind myself that even if only two of us turn up, the event is about raising money for charity and if that's successful then nothing else matters.

Gaming Table

In a spurt of enthusiasm a couple of months back I dismantled my gaming table in my garage with a view to building version two that would make the most of my modular tiles. Sadly funds haven't allowed me to rebuild it yet so I can no longer host games easily at my house. Whilst that's not the end of the world, it's frustrating me because I really enjoy having friends over for games.

Where to go from here then?

I think I need to look at prioritising things a bit, and this post is intended at providing some clarity to all the above issues so that I can avoid feeling overwhelmed in the next few months.

Hero for a Day has to be my number one priority - people across the country have pledged to come along and I've got international support helping to make it happen. I need to write four more narrative pieces and get the scenario pack finished, then paint up my raffle prize. It looks like I'll be using my Tau in the event now due to faction numbers, so I also need to write some lists up for them.

After that, I think I want a break from doing stuff to deadlines, so I reckon I'll deviate from my original plan for the Dusk Knights and just paint whatever takes my fancy for a bit.

The second main thing I really want to achieve though is getting the Dark Eldar gone - every time I see the models now they're irritating me because of how long and drawn out the process of selling them has become. I think therefore that this weekend I will try to make the effort to get them all photographed and listed on ebay (though if you know anyone who wants any bits, get in touch)

The gaming table will have to take a backseat unfortunately, it needs a reasonable investment in materials and time that I just can't make at the moment, so I'm just going to have to accept it's a non-starter for a while.

Sorry if this post comes across as a little self-indulgent, but the hobby and my commitments are weighing a little more heavy than usual on me at the moment and I felt the need to get some thoughts down in black and white. If you have any suggestions as to how best to prioritise stuff like this, please feel free to comment!